Blog Short #24: Stories We Tell Ourselves
Photo by RomoloTavani, Courtesy of iStock Photo
Human beings are natural storytellers. We love a good novel, a fictional TV show, or a juicy bit of gossip about someone.
So it’s not surprising that we also tell ourselves stories.
The problem is we often don’t recognize them as stories. We take them for fact. Most of the time, our stories are a mix of fact and fiction.
Here’s how this works:
Every day, a dance goes on between things that happen or experiences you have and your interpretation of those things and experiences.
You think you perceive them accurately and recall them factually, but what you remember and commit to memory are your interpretations. And these interpretations are significantly colored by your emotions, history, mindsets, and biases.
This means that your view of reality and your world is filtered through your personal lens.
You likely don’t consider it necessary to always examine your perceptions or ask yourself what’s actually true or accurate before you emotionally react and respond.
You take for granted that what you perceive is true.
The fact is, your emotions have the biggest impact on your memory and recall.
The more emotionally charged and impactful an event is, the more likely it will be stored in memory and the more emphasis you’ll give it. Also, it’s more likely to become distorted, especially when it triggers you somehow.
It works this for all of us. It’s almost like we create a fantasy and then react to that fantasy as though it’s true when sometimes it’s partially true, and sometimes it’s not true at all.
These are the stories we tell ourselves.
Your Daily Narrative
In a way, our lives are long stories like sagas. We tell the story to ourselves (as the narrator) and have the leading role in the story (as the actor).
Every day, you have a running conversation in your head about what’s happening and what you think and feel about it.
You bring up previous events and ruminate about them and construct future events. You watch the story, expand the story, review the story, and edit the story, all at the same time.
This narration runs almost by itself, sometimes without you knowing you’re doing it.
The problem occurs when your interpretation takes in only some of the facts or information pertinent to the story.
You’re limited by a tendency to ruminate and narrow your focus to what affects you the most emotionally.
What you see is only a slice of the story. You miss parts, resulting in distorted interpretations.
Here’s an Example:
Several nights ago, I got 5 hours of sleep because my 19-year-old Dachsie had some problems (which turned out all right).
The next day, I repeatedly said to myself, “I’m soooo tired.”
I must have repeated that idea in my mind at least 25 times, if not more. This is the slice of my experience I was focused on.
At one point, I caught it. I realized I was confining my day to the idea that I was so tired I couldn’t do anything. The more I said it to myself, the more tired I got.
I decided to let that thought sit quietly in the background and shift my attention to other activities. As I did that, I forgot how tired I was and accomplished a lot despite it. I was still tired, but not as much as I had imagined.
The story I had told myself that morning was:
- If I only had 5 hours of sleep, I wouldn’t be able to function.
- The day was going to be a loss because of it.
- I could only do the barest minimum.
That was my interpretation of the event, and I fed it with a single repetitive thought. Once I let go of that story, I realized it was exaggerated and not altogether true.
Stories have power!
Make Your Stories Work For You
You can use your stories positively if you become mindful in your story-telling. To do that, you have to:
- Be honest with yourself.
- Allow yourself time to recover emotionally from something before constructing your story.
- Take responsibility for your stories, and be deliberate in creating them.
- Widen your perceptions, and get all the information before coming to conclusions.
- Question repetitive thoughts and correct those that are faulty or too noisy.
- Create stories that help you grow rather than hold you hostage.
We’re going to tell stories. It’s our nature, so it behooves us to use this habit for the best.
If you follow the above rules, your stories will be more accurate and reinforce your sense of self and positive regard.
If your stories are laced with these themes, they’ll be detrimental to you:
- Repetitive self-criticism or disapproval
- Blaming others for your problems
- Justifying actions that aren’t in your best interest
- Catastrophic thinking
- Ruminating in circles
- I can’t
- Making snap decisions or being impulsive
Don’t use your stories to beat yourself up or paint a negative picture of yourself. Use them to:
- Perceive what’s true.
- Help you attain your goals.
- Make your daily experiences worthwhile, enjoyable, and productive.
- Consistently grow and improve.
Try This Exercise
Watch your stories for a day. This means watching repetitive themes or thoughts, interpretations of experiences, and things you say to yourself about yourself.
As you watch, pull those thoughts out and see if you need to revise them, lesson them, or discard them altogether.
Replace stories that are largely fantasy with stories that are more accurate and based on all the information you have at your disposal.
The idea is to widen your perception and to remember that things pass, things resolve, and there are actions you can take to keep yourself moving in a positive direction always.
Instead of being “sooooo tired” all day, you can say, “It’s just one day, and it’s not that bad, and there’s a lot I can do with this day despite being tired, and tomorrow I’ll get 8 hours of sleep.”
I changed that story, felt much better, and got a lot done. You can do the same with your stories!
That’s all for today.
Hope you have a great week!
All my best,
Barbara